blue belt life

I was lucky to live my first 32 years without losing a friend to anything other than distance and diverging interests. That streak ended last weekend with the death of a great man, a great friend, Anton Cavka. Anton barged into my life through Pete, a mutual friend in the party circuit in Tokyo. Shotgunning beers in his Harajuku office/house is among my earliest, hazy memories of hanging out with him. I reveled in his stories of alcohol-fueled insanity, female conquest, and the legend of his right cross from God. He was loud, bold, but with the humility necessary to know he was not everything – in his own words,…